


The Nameless Child's Revenge

by Sweety_Mutant



Category: Black Sails, The Decemberists
Genre: (for a few chapters), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Dark!Rackham, F/F, F/M, Gen, Lyrical style, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Swearing, Whaling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweety_Mutant/pseuds/Sweety_Mutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After so many years, Jack Rackham finally found the man he was searching for. </p><p>Alternate Universe inspired by The Decemberists' song, "The Mariner's Revenge Song"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two survivors

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is the result of me listening too much to ["The Mariner's Revenge Song"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEmy2DBaeTc) from The Decemberists. It inspired me to write a Black Sails Alternate Universe of this song.  
> So, of course, I had to do a few things to the timeline and the characters (they are not pirates anymore, for example, because I wanted to stick to the song's universe as much as possible). Well... Alternate Universe means what it means. 
> 
> Have fun reading!

I survived.

How did I? What machinery, what devilry allowed me to stay alive?

Is it you, mother? Am I inside you again, back where everything began and where it shall all end?

Is it you mother, who called for this creature that swallowed the world?

I open my eyes in vain. It is pitch black down here, and it smells like the depths of Hell. Maybe I am in Hell, we all are in Hell. Deep, rumbling sounds, wetness, warm and wet and warm and wet… I feel something liquid, slimy, falling on my head and shoulders. It is disgusting. My eyes adjust to the darkness, and instead of a black void, I distinguish black redness and some kind of watery, muddy floor around my boot. I stand amid a pond of blood, deep deep in Hell.

I survived.

Good news, I did not survive alone.

 

Gingerly, I walk a few steps towards a slumped silhouette. I try to steady myself on the soft, warm walls. The silhouette moves a little bit. Like me, he must have been unconscious.

I wonder if it is the Captain. Perhaps a nameless man from the other ship’s crew? A comrade? I want, I need to see. I need a light. There is no way that my matches will have survived the storm and the wetness… I reach for the pouch at my belt, find them. I crack one, it does not light, dying in sparkle. I try another, another. Finally, one of them catch fire, and I can take a look inside my new… home.

Red. Brownish, whitish, disgusting red. Acidic blood at my feet, gigantic ribs holding an unnatural temple of flesh together. I am inside Scylla, inside the sea monster that judges mariners…

The light flicker, the match is dying. I need to find something to use as a torch. All is wet down here, how can I find something?

I tear off a strip of my undershirt. It is still better than nothing, and luckily not as wet as everything else. Tentatively, I fish a broken piece of wood from the fleshy blood puddle. The fire dies. Blind, I dry the wood as much as I can on my drenched trousers, roll the fabric around. There is no chance to find oil down here, but I may have something better. Reluctantly – no, no I need the light, I must do it – I take the flask of rum off my belt, pour the contents on the makeshift torch. The world rumble around me, and I spill what little rum remained at my feet. I will have only one torch, only one chance. Luckily for me, the match works and I can light my torch.

Bearing the only source of light available, I get closer and closer to the other survivor. Among the half eaten drowned bodies of fellow sailors, he is alive.

I am shaking.

A burly, thick frame.

Black long hair. He has opened his eyes. Black, soulless eyes. I stand, towering over him, and bring the torch closer, until the light falls on his face. There must have been some kind of beauty once.

He looks at me, no emotions in his eyes.

It is _him_.

Oh my God, _it is him_.

The same than he was all those years ago, older, terrifying. At my mercy, _it is Him_.

I sneer.

“You may not remember me…”

His eyes slowly look into mine.

“But I remember you, and I will relate to you, how our histories interweave.”

I sit opposite to him. Oh, I do not care if I am sitting in blood. He looks at me more closely, puzzled. I hold the torch between the two of us. He does not move, waiting for me to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that you liked this chapter, feel free to drop a kudo or a comment, and stay tuned for more! ;)


	2. You may not remember me...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the new chapter, enjoy!

 “I was a child of ten… and you a lad of twenty five…

When did you learn of my existence? I do not know. I am certain that you never asked then. I was just a shadow in some corner, a brat you never cared about… It happened so long ago. Perhaps I should… tell it like a story. The story of how a young man came into an inn, on a peaceful evening of summer.

That young man, as I already told, was aged twenty five years old. Lush black hair that fell on his shoulders and a nice black beard, perfectly groomed. Warm eyes, a charming air, what civilised people call debonair. Yet behind his suave look he was cheap. Never a penny in his pocket, and when he was coming back from the sea, his pay fresh, everything was spent in an evening on drink, whores and games. He must have looked different from the usual tearaways of the inn. His quick smile bought him almost anything, charming his way past waitresses and lonely maids.

Where was he from? No one knew. Most likely the sea.

How many girls did he seduce? He did not even count. Enough to provide for a life of drinking and gambling. Each time he was on land, he would go to a different town, a different inn, so his reputation as a rake would not follow him. Most often he did not even tell people his real name. Each time he was on land he would go to sea again, severing his ties with whoever he had met on land. But none of his conquests would forget him. Yet all the others would find him so sweet, that it went on and on and on…

Something must have happened to him, because our story takes place in Leeds. For a man of the sea, he was far away from the waves. Maybe he wanted to rest for a while, or even better, to lie low.

Did this girl look different from all the others? Most likely not. She worked at a pub, a waitress like all others, trying to earn enough money to survive. Her son was working too. Almost never at home, doing any job he could to add to her poor salary. That girl, she was older than the rake’s usual preys. Older than him, even. Freshly widowed. How did he come to know that her husband had just died in the very inn he now stayed in?

He had been buried a few days earlier, his wife the only one to weep, his son too ashamed to even do so. Wait a minute… Did this man knew that the woman he was pursuing had a son? I bet he never asked her. Oh, for sure, he realised, one day, one night, when the boy came home from work… But we are going ahead of ourselves now.  Before I am to tell you the rake and the young widow’s story, I shall talk about her. Her very own story, not so different from many others, yet very important for our story.


	3. My mother, my father, his father and his father’s father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The new chapter is here! Enjoy!

The young widow’s name was Ellen Rackham. She was almost thirty, but looked younger. She had married a successful tailor when she was just a teenager and himself barely a man.

She came from an old family. Poor, but with coat of arms hanging above the mantelpiece. He, on the contrary, was rich. He was, as I said, a tailor in Leeds. As was his father and his father's father. They were not of blue blood, but their skills had brought them wealth. Calico. They made their fortune on imported cotton, cheaper than wool. Time was if a man on the Avondale Road asked where he might find the finest clothes in northern England, he was pointed toward the shop of a man named Rackham.

They were happy together, living into a small yet pretty estate. A few years after, the husband’s business flourishing, they decided to have a child. They had hoped for a son, one that could learn the art of tailoring beside his father, one that could take the business over when his father would be too old to work anymore. And a son they had. They named him Jack, Jack Rackham. Ellen was only nineteen then, and for years they were happy.

For years, until that dreaded year 1700. At the beginning, they thought that the law would not pass. But the men who sell wool have the ears of the men who make laws, and to protect themselves from competition, the Act of Parliament passed. It was the beginning of the end, yet the Rackham family was still hopeful. Their business was famous, the people of Leeds loved them. Young Jack, now aged seven, was sadly old enough to hear his parents fight and sob some nights, when it became too difficult. And slowly, like a child does, he understood. He understood that something was wrong, something he could not fix. With each day that passed, the business withered. Less and less money came in, and tension was too much. Jack still went with his father to the workshop, but it was not the same anymore. What he had inhered from his father, and his father’s father, and that should have been his son’s soon, was slipping inexorably through his hands.

With each day that passed, looking his son in the eye was more and more difficult for the father. He could see his shame reflected in the innocent eyes looking up at him. He tried to explain why they did not eat as much as they used to. Why their clothes were not new anymore… What he could not explain was why he drank as much as before. Why he drank more.

And more.

And more, until he could not look at his son anymore. Until he could not hear his questions anymore, until he could not care about his wife’s sobs.

She was drowning in despair. Now that they were jobless, penniless, all she could do was try to earn a few coins at the inn while suffering the jeers. She was the wife of the drunkard who screamed obscenities in church, the wife of the drunkard who roamed the streets, telling who wanted to hear him out how the world had let him down. Yet, she bore her head high, and went on working. For herself, for her son. She could do it. She still loved her husband, for sure, but the quiet peace of their first years together was long gone.

Every night, she looked at her son, proud. He was the only one to help her husband now. He was beside him all day, trying to talk him out of the bottle, putting his arms over his shoulders as he was thrown out of church. He was the only one left to shield him from the insults, from the stones and rotten fruits.

All alone, she cried. Until they both came home, she cried.

And on the day when it was the last bottle for her husband, she cried as well. Her son seemed to have lost all innocence then, hurt deeply by the insults – God, the insults. He was tall, proud and so young at the funeral. She was all black-clad, still beautiful but who would want her, at the funeral.

It was awful silent for the both of them. Silence filled with the whispered insults of sneering neighbours. It was silent in the estate. Silent and cold and lonely.

It grew colder. Colder with the winter, her son now ten years old. 

It was so cold, yet her heart was lit by a tiny flickering flame, when her son told her that everything would be all right. He was going to set things right. He was going to work and forget his pride. For the both of them.


	4. Everything Moves Towards Its End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the new chapter! I'll try to update it as regularly as possible, even if I am exhausted by my job and the Final Exams at Uni.

Jack began to work then. He worked hard, at a wool factory where he was payed so very little for his labour. Yet, with his wage, most of his father’s drinking debts would be repaid soon, and his mother would smile again. A few days after the burial, as folks men have a short memory, people no longer sneered at her wherever she went, making fun of her worn out clothes and thin frame instead of making fun of her husband. Her job at the local inn did not bring in much money, but at last they had something to eat every day.

The family’s pride had been broken beyond repair, but that fateful day… that day, it was the start of a far worse ordeal for the widow and her son.

That evening, the widow was working in the inn as a waitress, her apron tied over her slim waist. Her brown hair was held in a loose bun, and her cheeks coloured by the heat. The inn was full of half-drunk workers, a few weary travellers… and there was the rake. It was the second day that he was in town, sleeping in that very inn.

Did he saw the widow the first day? Maybe she was the very first person he saw, that could explain… Oh well… Nothing can really explain except for his nature.

That second night, he catcalled her. She did not answer. He asked for a cold beer, she obliged. He smiled over his glass, apologising for his boldness, and then he bought her one. She refused, not during the service. He said later then, with a wink. He was charming, and when she got home, her son already asleep, exhausted by his work, she had accepted a date the next day with Edward Drummond. She fell asleep with a smile on her face, her arm thrown over the empty pillow in her big bed.

The following morning, when she got up, she was somehow happier. She bought some bread, then tried different hairstyles. She chose the same bun as always, in the end. She decided not to be hopeful.

That charming young man she had met… he could very well have been anyone, couldn’t he? Yet, since she had been married, he was the only one to have looked at her in that very special way that made her shiver.

They met in front of the inn and he greeted her with a bow. They walked in the streets, arm in arm, and though she was wary of the onlookers, he was a reassuring presence.

Finally, they sat down on a bench, and he talked. He told tales of his life.

He spent months whaling in the northern seas, where it is so cold that even rum freezes. It was a wealthy business, he had coins and jewels to show off, but he said that he missed the comfortable life one has when he stays on land.

This speech, it was the very same one he always told to his women. Speaking in those honeyed tones of the difficulties of his life until they gasped. Warning them that he would, one day, go away again, go to sea once more…

Ellen Rackham had never seen the sea.

She told him so, and he told her the sea. The swaying waves, the smell and the cries of the gulls. The tempests, the powerful ships and the gigantic white whales.

She closed her eyes, traveling with each of his words. I like to imagine his smile when he saw her give in, eyes closed, so close to him, hands touching. Predatory. Victorious. Evil?

That evening, he brought her back home, and bowed again in front of her door. The son watched it all from the kitchen, only raising an eyebrow when his mother ruffled his hair. She did not answer any question that night… he knew not to ask them.

He should have asked questions maybe, because all week long, Ellen was pretty in the morning, and the rake held the door to her in the evenings. He had not yet dared to go inside the house, a question of manners and finesse.

At night, they saw each other in the tavern, and more than once she bought him a drink, a last pint and another one. Some nights, he was not at his usual spot in the inn. Ellen was too busy to care, but of course she noticed. When she asked, he told her that he was playing. There was a gleam in his eyes then, and she could almost hear him say “playing with my life.” She daydreamt that it was the case. He was off to some heroic and dangerous errands… while in fact he was in a dirty basement, shouting and smoking while hounds tore each other to shreds. He was not playing with his life, oh no! But each day, he was a little bit lighter. His purse smaller and smaller.

Empty, like each time he was on land.

One evening, he went to the bar, she was serving the customers there. For minutes, he looked at her, and more than once she caught him. They smiled sweetly at each other.

When she stepped out of the tavern, at the end of her shift, she found him. He was looking at the blackish sky, his breath hot in the cold of the night.

“I have a problem my lady… would you be so kind as to lend me a hand?”

Of fucking course, she had to accept.  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you liked this chapter, feel free to drop a kudo or a comment, and stay tuned for more! ;)


End file.
